Celebrating five years of Campus, a home for startups

June 7th, 2017

We’re big believers in the power of startups to fuel progress and build businesses that make a positive impact—on individuals, communities and economies. But most great startups don’t go it alone: A supportive community is critical to their success. That’s why five years ago, we opened the doors of Campus London and Campus Tel Aviv, our first spaces for entrepreneurs to learn, share, connect and collaborate.

Since then, Google for Entrepreneurs has gone on to open four more Campuses in Seoul, Madrid, Warsaw, São Paulo—and Campus now has 200,000+ members globally. While each location customizes trainings and events to reflect the needs of their city, they have a few key things in common: Anyone can join as a member, host an event for the benefit of local entrepreneurs, or attend educational sessions, all for free. And all of our Campus communities are made of people who see problems as opportunities and then take action to fix them. Founders in Campuses are working to improve the health of older generations with apps like KareInn, foster interaction between governments with citizens with Nama, and help babies and parents sleep better with a smart device called Whisbear.

KareInn is on a mission to change how we care for older generations through real-time activity tracking and care coordination. They got their start in Campus London’s cafe, grew in the coworking space, and later took investment from our resident accelerator partner, Seedcamp. “The Seedcamp investment happened because we managed to bump into the right people in the [Campus] cafe at the right time,” says co-founder Alex Kenney.

In a challenging political environment, Nama, a machine learning startup, worked with the State of São Paulo to foster interactions with citizens through a chatbot—exchanging more than 7.5 million messages in less than 90 days. Nama is part of Campus São Paulo‘s Residency program. “Being part of this community in this Google space was instrumental for our growth over the past year,” says founder Rodrigo Scotti.

Lyrics Training aims to make online language learning fun, with music videos, lyrics and karaoke. “For a small startup like us, having access to such a personal and detailed training by an expert was amazing. Thanks to his [Googler] mentoring, we have increased our monthly revenue by 30 percent and, after two years with no income, finally I’m able to obtain a monthly salary and work full time on my project,” says founder Fernando Diaz.

With only 8 percent of startups founded by women in Korea, Hyemin Lee is an inspiration to many. Already a successful entrepreneur, she’s now the cofounder of Finda. While working from Campus Seoul, she hired her first five employees for Finda, raised a $1M Series A round, and with help of Googlers implemented machine learning to her recommendation engine. She also serves as a mentor to women in the community.

SaferVPN, a fast-growing SaaS startup with millions of users, didn’t even have a company name when they first came to Campus Tel Aviv. They participated in Google Developers’ Launchpad, and continued to scale with the support of programs like Campus Exchange: Cyber Security. “When I reflect on where we are today, how far we’ve come, and what it took to get here, I always think of Campus Tel Aviv,” says founder Sagi Gidali.

New moms Zuzanna Sielicka-Kalczyńska and Julia Sielicka-Jastrzębska wanted to bring newborn babies (and their parents) more peaceful sleep. After years of trial and error, Whisbear was born, a smart soothing device. As participants in Campus for Moms, our baby-friendly startup school, and a two-week immersive startup bootcamp in Silicon Valley, their new global network is helping them take Whisbear beyond Campus Warsaw.